Twenty Dollars Clause
While the amount mentioned in the amendment ($20) has not been indexed or adjusted for inflation, Congress has never extended federal diversity jurisdiction to amounts that small, and the amendment is one of the few portions of the Bill of Rights never to have been incorporated by the Supreme Court of the United States. Under the current Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (28 U.S.C. ยง1332), the amount in dispute in diversity cases must exceed $75,000 USD in order for the case to be heard in federal court.
Read more about this topic: Seventh Amendment To The United States Constitution
Famous quotes containing the words twenty, dollars and/or clause:
“Here commences what was called, twenty years ago, the best timber land in the State. This very spot was described as “covered with the greatest abundance of pine,” but now this appeared to me, comparatively, an uncommon tree there,—and yet you did not see where any more could have stood, amid the dense growth of cedar, fir, etc.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Social and scientific progress are assured, sir, once our great system of postpossession payments is in operation, not the installment plan, no sir, but a system of small postpossession payments that clinch the investment. No possible rational human wish unfulfilled. A man with a salary of fifty dollars a week can start payments on a Rolls-Royce, the Waldorf-Astoria, or a troupe of trained seals if he so desires.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Long ago I added to the true old adage of “What is everybody’s business is nobody’s business,” another clause which, I think, more than any other principle has served to influence my actions in life. That is, What is nobody’s business is my business.”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)